The first official review of 2023 may be the easiest watch of 2023. In barely 70 minutes comes The Horror Collective’s latest feature, Bring out the fear. The film continues a long line of tight, nightmarish films from the budding production company whose track record is nearly flawless. Bring out the fear combines elements of The Blair Witch with the claustrophobic setting of The Ritual. The result is a treatise on what it is to be trapped. Trapped in a job. Trapped in an environment. Trapped in a circle of addiction. Most notably, trapped in a relationship.
Bring out the fear follows a couple struggling to mend their doomed relationship and lost in a dangerous forest that refuses to let them escape. This festival darling will leave you wondering what’s real and what’s malicious deception until the very last frame. That last frame will be as controversial as it is confusing.
Most of the movie effectively uses the forest as a setting as wild as the relationship Rosie (Ciara Bailey) and Dan (Tad Morari) are trying to reconcile. The film effectively introduces Rosie as an alcoholic in recovery. The alcoholism seems to have been a catalyst for their relationship problems, as Rosie cheated on Dan while intoxicated. The walking tour is meant to be a fun, relaxing way to evaluate the relationship, which Dan is desperate to take to the next level.
The real horror begins when the pair get lost, only to realize that their compass, phones and watches no longer seem to work. The trouble seems to be time and space itself as a monster with a wooden face and hands starts chasing them. The creature’s design is one of the real highlights, as the revelations come in short jerky bursts that only seem to add to the Pinnochio lumberjack aesthetic that brings out the film’s weirdness. Every time one of our characters closes their eyes, the forests somehow warp their reality to force them apart.
While the characters eventually and inevitably move away from each other, the movie revolves around showing how toxic relationships can feel equally claustrophobic. Dan doesn’t appear to be a villain, and I’m not entirely convinced the movie wants us to believe that he is. Rather, writer/director Richard Waters wants us to explore the damage that happens when people want different things out of their relationships and don’t communicate them effectively. More than the communication, the film’s horror stems from the power imbalance that inevitably occurs when one person refuses to see the other as a completely autonomous human being.
The end of the film offers a climax that is both harrowing and terrifying as the wooden scarecrow begins to take over their reality. The movie’s ending feels a bit rushed, and while I tend to like ambiguous endings, there are too many other head fakes and red herrings to be fully satisfied with an ending that may or may not offer an actual denouement. I left the movie not knowing what happened, but in a cold sweat. Maybe that’s the point. Relationships are scary, and any attempt to understand them is at your peril. Anyway, I left and looked at my wedding ring in a completely different light.
Bring out the Fear opens today and you can stream it on a number of different platforms. It’s a fast watch that opens your 2023 properly. If nothing else, it will very quickly put you off your walking resolution for the new year. You can find all release details on the official Bring Out the Fear website. It comes out today.
Tyler has been Signal Horizon’s editor-in-chief since its conception. He is also the director of Monsters 101 at Truman State University, a class that combines horror film criticism with survival skills to help middle and high school students learn critical thinking. When he’s not watching, teaching, or thinking about horror, he’s the director of Debate and Forensics at a high school in Kansas City, Missouri.
